My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic: Battle Royale
by Zach Archer
Summary: Put into effect one hundred years ago as a means of both population control and show of power the Program pits twenty-one ponies against each other on an island until only one survives. Can Twilight and friends survive?


**My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic**

**Battle Royale**

**By: Ratchet573**

**Chapter One: Let The Games Begin**

The purple zeppelin lifted from the flat lands outside of Ponyville, it's twenty-one occupants ooing and ahing at this special piece of technology sent specifically from Princess Celestia herself to pick them up and take them to Canterlot for The Grand Galloping Gala. Inside of the gondola, the ponies conversed quietly, all excited for the huge festival. Among the ponies invited to the Gala and enjoying this first class ride courtesy of the Princess were Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Flutter Shy, Spike, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Trixie. Trixie presided over a small group of people, her horn giving off a radiant light as she performed magic tricks for her captivated audience. Twilight Sparkle watched, silently laughing at the menial display. You can pull rabbits from a hat, she though, but that doesn't make you the best magician in the world.

Spike followed Rarity, mimicking her every move. He continually badgered the purple haired pony, asking for any task to do. He had no idea if Rarity knew he liked her, but he hoped she liked him nonetheless. Maybe someday, he would get the mental strength to tell her his true feelings instead of acting like an idiot just to get her attention.

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy all sat together in the corner of the gondola, talking about the upcoming Gala and what they expected from it. Rainbow Dash cried in joy at the thought of the Wonderbolts being at the Gala. Maybe she would find a way to join them? Fluttershy smiled at the chance to show her animal skills to everyone when she serenaded them with a choir of birds.

Pinkie Pie hopped around happily, her eyes bright. "Party, party, party!" She cried as she jumped up and down as if her hooves were pogo sticks. "This is going to be the best party ever, next to my parties of course! Right Rainbow?" She stopped hopping beside Rainbow Dash, her face pressing against Rainbow's. "Am I correct?"

"Uh...yeah!" Rainbow Dash replied trying her hardest not to sound too sarcastic. "Your parties will always be the best Pinkie!"

Pinkie smiled and hopped away, going toward Trixie's magic show. Trixie was levitating a hat and a magic wand circled around it. She looked up at her audience as she stopped the wand's orbit around the black top hat. "Now watch as I make a bunny magically appear!"

Trixie reached her hoof inside and instantly pulled back in alarm as Pinkie's head came out of the hat. "Wow, it's really nice in this hat! No wonder the bunnies love it!" Trixie cried out, the hat dropping from the air. Pinkie yelped as she was thrown out, tumbling end over end into Trixie.

Twilight Sparkle laughed. "That's Pinkie Pie for you."

She then heard a small hiss that seemed to come from all around the gondola. Everyone heard it as a matter of fact, their ears perking up at the sound. They looked around, wondering if perhaps it was a hole torn in the zeppellin, or maybe one of the exits had accidentally been open. But then the smell hit, a terribly pungent smell that burned the nostrils and made the throat dry. The ponies in the gondola cried out as they figured out what it was hissing into the room: gas. Someone was shooting gas into the gondola trying to knock them out.

The first person to pass out was Spike, the smallest of the twenty-one aboard. He was followed by all the rest shortly thereafter.

The pilot of the zeppelin, a royal guard for Princess Celestia, smiled sadistically as he saw what had taken place inside of the gondola. He pressed a button on the control console with his hoof and Princess Celestia answered.

"Yes?"

"The twenty-one have been knocked out and we are on course to Saddle Island. The Program is about to commence." The guard replied.

"Good. I want you to make all the necessary preparations before you touch down at Saddle Island. The Director is waiting."

"Yes ma'am." The guard ended the transmission and turned to the two other guards standing behind him. Next to them was a case and inside of that case were collars.

"Start putting the collars on the ponies. Make sure your gas masks are properly worn. Check all of them for vital signs as well, we don't need anypony dying on us before the Program even starts."

"Yes sir." They turned to the case, opening it and putting their gas masks on before heading into the main area of the gondola with the case containing the collars.

The zeppelin moved past the mainland and hovered over the sea, heading for a small island in the middle of nowhere, heading toward a place of quiet serenity that would soon be a war zone.

The Program was instilled by Princess Celestia over a hundred years before as a means of both population control, and show of power. The Program took twenty-one ponies from one city, all of different backgrounds, different genders, different lifestyles; and made them kill each other in the most brutal fashion imaginable. The ponies would be put on the small island of Saddle Island where they would be given a weapon, a map, a compass, and a few bottles of water and food. From there, the objective was simple, kill or be killed. The combatants would wear collars and as the game progressed, certain areas of the island would be blocked off. If a pony were to enter that area, the collar would explode, taking that ponies head with it. Over the course of the three days maximum of violence, the island would be shut off sector by sector, eventually leaving only one area for the survivors to duke it out in. They had an hour once it was down to one last sector. If there was not a single pony to take the victory and four, three, or even two were still alive: all the collars would be detonated leaving no winner.

The family of the combatants would be told of their loved ones whereabouts as soon as they touched down on the island by royal guards. If the loved ones rebelled, they would be killed on the spot. There was no fighting the Princess. No matter who your children were, nopony was safe from the Program.

The one survivor, if there were a survivor, would live forever in luxury. The Princess would personally pay him or her every week and give him or her a new house, along with whatever provisions or entertainment or even lover they wanted. It was the kind of luxury only afforded those who survived the Program. And after one hundred years and one hundred violent battles on Saddle Island only five had survived the whole three days and was the last pony standing.

They all awoke in a classroom, their vision blurred, moaning at the pain coursing through their veins. Their heads were throbbing, their eyes were taring up, their throats were dry. They looked around, wondering where they were and what was happening. They noticed the metal collars around their necks and tried to piece together the going ons since they had entered the zeppelin. Someone had knocked them out with gas, that was for certain. Was it hijackers? Pirates? Could it all have been some twisted dream?

Twilight asked all these questions allowed, her mouth running wildly. She was freaking out, she had never been so scared in her life. She couldn't move, couldn't do much of anything as if some sort of neurotoxin were running through her veins.

A pony came through the front door of the classroom, closing the door behind him. His mane was jet black, his eyes even darker. His cutie mark was a burning skull. He cantered in front of the chalkboard and long mahogany desk with a metal plaque atop it: Mr. Kurasaki it read. He chewed on the eraser end of a pencil, eying each of the ponies in the desks before him. All this fresh, young meat. It was too bad because he knew one of them was a personal friend of Princess Celestia and she was quite sad to see her name come up when names were drawn for the Program. Nonetheless, she pushed her personal feelings aside, knowing all things died eventually, and all things had a set fate. If it were Twilight Sparkle's time to die, then so let it be.

"Hello ponies and welcome to Saddle Island. I'm the fifth director of the Program, Nagano Kurasaki. You have all been brought here for one purpose, and that is to fight to the death. Now, before you go getting bright ideas about escaping this island in the middle of nowhere, please let me state clearly that you each have a collar around your necks that contains enough C4 to separate your head from your body. If you even hop in the surf of this island our monitors will know and will send you to kingdom come. You got that?"

"Excuse me sir!" Came the grating voice of a pink pony with balloons for a cutie mark. Kurasaki grunted. He still chewed the pencil.

"What?" He asked Pinkie Pie. He knew all of their names having seen all their files. He liked to be intimate with the people he saw die, it made the violence even more exciting. Plus it was a part of figuring out what weapons he would give each of them.

Pinkie Pie hopped out of her desk and Kurasaki then understood why he felt uneasy when she spoke up. The neurotoxin should still be working, he had an hour before it should have worn off. He didn't want to be stuck in a room with a punch of rowdy ponies which was why he had made the guards do suck a thing. He hated having to kill a pony before the show even began.

Pinkie came at him, hopping the whole way and his eyes went wide. He was under attack! Who did she think she was? He twisted his head and thrashed his head to the side as hard as he could, sending the pencil like a projectile toward Pinkie.

Pinkie cried out as the pencil's sharpened end burst through her left eye, blood gushing out around the wooden thing. She fell to the floor, the pencil having punctured her brain. Every person in the room stared at her in horror, then at Kurasaki.

"That is a warning to you all. Don't mess with anypony who is part of the Program's team or you will be killed instantly." He proceeded to give the rules, explaining every aspect of the Program. He then nodded toward the bags underneath the desks of the ponies.

"Each pony gets a weapon specially suited to their own strength. Some of you will get something very powerful, others something like a branch. This is all done to make everything even. In about forty-five minutes the neurotoxin will dissipate and you will be free to move around. Grab your gear and head out of the school building. There are maps in everyone's bags with landmarks. I'd suggest you start setting up any traps you plan on using.

"You know the rules, you know the stakes. I expect this to be the best year we've had. Put on a good show."

**20 Ponies Remaining**


End file.
